throw their weight behind hamas against israel, that egypt acts as a kind of restraining partner which is what it's typically done with militants in the area, and that's why the president's conversations with egypt are so important right now. >> and speaking of the middle east, the investigation into the early characterizations of the september 11 attack on the consulate in benghazi took a new turn this past week. as you know david petraeus, the former cia director, testifying that they were aware this was a terrorist attack from the get-go. did his testimony leave the white house any plausible deniability about how it characterized that attack? >> it may have because at the time of the attack in the immediate aftermath the intelligence community was saying something very similar to what susan rice said on "meet the press" and other programs five days later. and this is the key question, which is did they fail to call it what it was? and that is a terror attack on an anniversary of 9/11? and if so, why? i think resolving that is still the key question but it only gets us to the bigger